Opera on the Move in the Nordic Countries during the Long 19th ...

Formed to Perform
ny Lind, Mathilda Gelhaar, Louise Michaeli and Oscar Arnoldson (Norlind
1922, p. 377–379). Berg’s teaching principles were never published, but he
left two book-length manuscripts and a collection of study material that are
now in the possession of the Music and Theatre Library in Stockholm. This
didactic material shows a heavy dependence on the Italian school of the
time and will be discussed below.
The European influence is evident in a combination of Italian and German
schools that were essential in shaping the curriculum and aesthetic
principles of the opera singers in Stockholm. Both Haeffner and Stieler
were products of the German school headed by Hiller, Haeffner perhaps to
a lesser degree. Lalin, Piccini and Berg, on the other hand, were trained in
the Italian singing style and recognised by their contemporaries as champions
of Italian principles. Lalin and Craelius were both given the chance
to study in Germany and Italy, and in contemporary texts they are mostly
associated with the Italian singing style. With the exception of Berg, none
was immediately hired as a singing master. In fact, the position of singing
master often seems to have been a position given to someone who could
not perform on stage as well as expected. From this, we can detect a didactic
strategy that possibly sought to secure the educational worth of these
individuals.
Some of the music directors, such as Ferdinand Zellbell, Jr, Georg Joseph
Vogler and Edouard Du Puy, also seem to have taught some of the more
gifted students. 7 Of these, Vogler, who published a vocal manual, will be
discussed below.
From this short survey of the directors and singing masters it can be
seen that the directors between 1790 and 1850 were generally actors, not
singers, most of them trained in the French school following the teachings
7 Ferdinand Zellbell, Jr, is said to have taught Elisabeth Olin, the prima donna of the
Gustavian opera. He was one of the founders of the Music Academy in 1771 and elected
member No. 10. Between 1771 and 1774 he was the director of the Academy’s music
schools. Zellbell was not a singer by profession, but played the organ, harpsichord and
violin. (Franzén 1992-1994, 28, p. 188, Bengtsson 1979, pp. 872–873). Du Puy was a
Swiss opera singer, violinist and composer who studied with Chabran and Dussec in
Paris. Whether he had any training in singing is unknown. In 1793 he was in Stockholm
giving violin concerts together with another famous violinist, Moser, and, at the
departure of Moser, was promptly hired as second concertmaster in the court chapel.
In 1795 du Puy was elected to the Academy of Music in Stockholm. He had a talent for
singing and was soon hired as a singer at the opera as well. His contemporaries seem
to have categorised his singing style as decidedly French. He also taught singing; the
tenor Sällström claimed to have been his sole student. Du Puy changed both repertoire
and vocal aesthetics at the opera from the German to the French style. (von Beskow
1870, p. 172)
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